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We’ve added a fun new alphabet game to our Busy Binders! I shared our newest game on my Instagram awhile back, but it’s such a hit I wanted to share with everyone.
Squeaks has gotten very good at recognizing her uppercase letters, but matching them to their lowercase version is still a challenge. In the course of my homeschool reading and research I’ve found that there are quite a few people who suggest teaching uppercase letters only at first. I suppose that might work for some, but squeaks seems to want to know all the things right now, which is the case with pretty much every subject. She’s a lot like me in that way.
When reading books she’ll happily point out the letters she knows and ask what the other letters are. She’ll pretend to spell out words and write the letters out in her notebook. You can’t always tell what she’s writing but she can and she’s super proud of herself, and that’s all I care about right now. (Check out this hilarious video of her creative spelling skills. Cracks me up!) Anyhow, she’s just not satisfied to stick to uppercase only and I see no point in holding back on something she shows interest in.
How the alphabet wheel works:
Squeaks loves the counting wheels I made and the alphabet wheel is pretty much the same setup. Colorful lowercase letters circle the wheel and she matches the corresponding uppercase letters to them using clothespins (bonus fine motor practice). The design is simple and that’s the way I like it. No need for distractions, but still fun and colorful. The uppercase and lowercase letters are color coordinated. This is helping her remember those tricky similar letters like b/d and p/q.
It’s so fun to watch Squeaks work on this. She likes to sit at the kitchen counter and work while I make lunch or dinner. There are a few ways we like to use the wheel. Sometimes we can make it a race to see how many she can match in a set time. Other times we just go slow and talk about each letter, naming words that go with it. I also like to make the letter sounds as she matches them so she is visualizing what letter goes with the sound. She always gets so proud of herself for finishing the whole wheel and of course I’m proud of her too!
Get your Alphabet Matching Printable Wheel here!
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